Astronomy on Tap Seattle: Oct. 28th at Peddler Brewing Co

THIS MONTH Astronomy on Tap and TEDx Seattle partner to present a night dedicated to the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST)! LSST, currently under construction, will image and catalogue tens of billions of galaxies and stars and find more than 3 million exploding stars and 6 million asteroids and comets over the next decade, effectively creating a 10 year, multi-color, ultra high-resolution movie of the night sky. Join us to hear LSST research scientists Dr. John Parejko and Dr. David Reiss (bios below) from the University of Washington talk about everything from the LSST telescope and camera design, to the software challenges associated with processing such a huge data set, to the amazing science to be gained from mining the sky in 4-D.

David Reiss obtained his PhD in Astronomy at the UW where he found dozens of supernovae, and helped discover that 75% of the universe is composed of “dark energy.” Since then, he moonlighted as a programmer and computational biologist, before joining the LSST team where he is developing algorithms and tools which will enable discovery of 1,000s of asteroids and supernovae per night with the LSST.

John Parejko started mining astronomical data in grad school at Drexel University working on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), studying galaxies and the massive black holes that love them. He comes to UW from Yale University, where he did precision cosmology measurements and developed operations software for the SDSS telescope. As part of LSST, John is working on software to precisely co-align astronomical images, to cut down on the number of bogus detections.

Each FREE Astronomy on Tap event features accessible, engaging science presentations on topics ranging from planets to black holes to the beginning of the Universe. Most events have games and prizes to test and reward your new-found knowledge! There is always lots of time to ask questions and interact with the presenters and other scientists who inevitably stick around for the beer.

Originally founded in NYC, this is our 19th month in Seattle presented by graduate students in astronomy at the University of Washington. We’re thrilled to be hosted by Ballard’s own Peddler Brewing Company who will have a variety of beers (and plenty of astronomy) on tap.

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